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Saturday, August 5, 2017

I don't know about you, but I started wondering about the history of this sport of disc dogs, or more specifically, why I am experiencing the occasional claw in the back of the neck and oozing vital life fluids?

I started to wonder just how far back one has to go to see the first disc dog performance or information? Did kings and queens have some kind of realm of entertainment with discs and dogs? Will there be silent films or sepia tone pics of men in suits throwing discs for their dogs between fox hunts?

It seems the origins of the sport may not be quite that romantic.

Believe it or not the sport of disc dogs became a public thing on August 5th, 1974, when a 19-year-old named Alex Stein broke into a nationally televised baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds, with his dog, named Ashley Whippet, and started doing tricks on the field.

While on the field he had his dog hitting high speeds and chasing 90-yard tosses and jumping high in the air to catch discs.

His demonstration started out in such an entertaining fashion that they stopped the game for 8 minutes and one of the TV announcers continued to announce... the dog action!

Alex was arrested and hauled off after his trespassing stunt. And true to form, no one from the PD bothered with the dog, but Ashley was caught by a kid in the stands and Alex and Ashley were reunited several days later. But it was worth it because they had made their mark on the world, letting people know what kind of fun people can have with dogs and discs.

How did this crazy idea of Alex's come about?

A few years before that night, a young man, a college student named Alex Stein received a dog as a gift from a girlfriend, and according to sources, when his dog was at a ripe young age of 3 weeks old, Alex figured his dog would be famous. He named him Ashley Whippet.

While he was a puppy, Alex weened him using Frisbees to feed him. Then as the dog got older and Alex would throw a disc, the dog would go after it! What's astounding is that at the ripe young age of 6 months, Ashley was reported to be able to get 12 feet in the air to catch discs.

{Safety Thought:Now-a-days, there are age restrictions of 18-months on young dogs in competitions so they do not injure their growth plates at an early age. A growth plate injury might not be evident right away, but will make its presence known in latter years.}

Aside from that, Alex spent a lot of time taking his pup to the college greens every day and having fun while crowds gathered. (One of my favorite things to do is to hit up the Stanford quad and play with Vader.)

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

In a nutshell, if your dog does not like fireworks, keep them indoors for the few days leading up to July 4, and maybe even a day after. And microchip or double check that your microchip info is up to date. Just in case.

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The Fourth of July is coming and most dog custodians know that with July 4th, some dogs can get pretty frightened or skiddish from the loud bangs going off in the sky all around them.

To dogs, fireworks are unnatural, shocking, and downright scary. Like the sky itself is barking at them and ripping apart. And that ain't right!

The sad and scary part of this entire process is that it's not just the fourth of July you have to worry about, but the week leading up to and possibly a few nights after the holiday.

That's because sometimes people feel the need to 'practice' with their big loud bang-makers before the big night. And for me, that's when I think some dog owners can be at the most risk, those days leading up to the fourth and not expecting it. A peer of mine in the disc dog world lost his dog to testing that took place a few nights prior to the 4th. And if a well trained disc dog can be impacted by this stuff, you do the math.

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When fireworks and the like go off animals can react in different ways. Some don't care one bit. (If you're lucky.) Others will freak a bit, looking around, wondering what the hell is that!? Others will bolt for parts unknown in the house, hide under things or what not. They'll shake and shiver, possibly thinking the world is ending.

Monday, June 5, 2017

Vader, as part of the Disc Dogs of the Golden GateFrisbee dog show team, took part in some of the halftime events at Avaya Stadium, while the SJ Earthquakes faced off against the LA Galaxy team! Unfortunately LA won, 4 - 2!

But be it as it may, the disc dog show team went out and "played" with our pups and as always, we had quite the blast as we pulled off some moves and hearing the near-18k-strong audience cheering for each jump and catch!

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

A lot is going on behind the scenes here at Vader's World and because of that, our participation schedule for some events are getting minimized. Hence, Team Vader's 2017 competitive season might be a bit shorter than past seasons.

At the moment, due to various reasons working against our calendar, we are looking at participating in ONLY four local tournaments this year, and the big one the dogs will miss will the season closer for our local, Northern CA disc dog club! That's it. It's kind of a bummer, but it is what it is. That is fairly disappointing because it is minimizing Lark's chances
to land on the podium at any of our local events. Unless of course, old
man Vader decides to take a bow out and let Lark go in his place!

But we are considering on competing in the Purina ProPlan Incredible Dog Challenge (PPIDC) Western Regional Qualifier show on June 9th down in Huntington Beach, CA. The PPIDC holds contest shows in agility, weave, diving dog, Jack Russell hurdle racing, surf dogs and of course, our corner of the world, freestyle flying disc dogs!

Monday, March 20, 2017

So there we were, Vader and I were playing around in the local park. Vader was doing some spins, me some flips... OK, that's a lie. If I ever flipped it would be a one-way trip planting myself in the grass to sprout in the spring!

But Vader and I were practicing and there was a little girl, her name I later learned was Sarah, she was around eight or nine years old, and she was watching us from afar. She seemed interested but shy.

So I 'accidentally' tossed a disc in her direction and ambled over towards her and started chatting with her.

Thursday, February 9, 2017

UPDATE: The Disc Dog Demonstration part of this weekend has been cancelled due to flooding in our performance area! Splash Dogs will still be there!!!

This upcoming weekend, on February 10-12, 2017, the Solano County Home & Garden Show will be taking place in Dixon, CA. This weekend's show is sponsored by Greiner Heating, Air, & Solar Enegry Inc., Ron DuPratt Ford, Best Western Plus, The Home Depot, Northern California Roofing, Aaction Rents and Ashley Homestore.

The Solano County Home & Garden Show will be bringing a ton of vendors and exhibitors to one location to showcase their products and services to the general public. It will be taking place at the Dixon Fairgrounds located at 655 First Street, Dixon, CA.

There are so many vendors that there are too many to mention here, but one of the "vendors" will be the Disc Dogs of the Golden Gateand Splash Dogs!

Yes, this is a dog friendly event.

Disc Dogs of the Golden Gate will be at the event on Saturday and Sunday, with disc dog demonstrations taking place at 11AM and 2PM. Plus between shows, we'll be hanging out conducting impromptu practice sessions and playing around with our pups.

It will be fun! (It would have been fun!)

Splash Dogs will also be having their own special kind of fun, with dock jumping and dock diving events all weekend.

They'll also have some live bands.

So if you're in the area, you should come by and check out the fun! DDoGG will be located in the K9 Carnival section of the event.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Twice a year dog owners take the time to brace themselves for the inevitable idiocy of private citizens firing off illegal or other fireworks in their neighborhood streets. More times than naught, someone, somewhere, no matter how prepared, pays the price when an ill-timed surprise boom goes off from the house down the street and scares their family pet.

On a few occasions, I have been a peer or neighbor of such a tragedy and of late, I found a neighbor's dog after it was startled by an illegal firework. But in this case, what I found were remains of their pup on the the nearby freeway. The header image is all that I dare post, the rest was just too much to bear or look at again.

I did not appreciate the ass-hat who set off the firework that petrified this poor pup to charge head on, out of fear, to wherever her feet would take her. I did not appreciate having to look closely at the remains of this poor victim of stupidity.

What tore my heart out was when we contacted the owners and watched their grief come forth as they confirmed it was indeed their pup, the love of their life, laid out there between freeway lanes. And with them, my heart broke for them and while they stood in shock, I cried for them.

All because of an illegal and "fun" firework that was set off.

This isn't the first time I've been privy to someone I know losing a dog to fireworks and it probably won't be the last time.

When a pup gets scared, it runs. It does not use its brain. It does not use its training. It does not use habit. Nature takes over and they just all out, run and run and run. Logic goes out the window. Normal reasoning is gone. It's the fear that takes over and drives them until they're exhausted. They don't look, they don't slow, they just run.